2024-08-19 Meeting notes

Jenn Colt is next, followed by Florian Gleixner

Reminder:  Please copy/paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

Maccabee Levine

Tod Olson

Jakub Skoczen

Craig McNally

Jenn Colt 

• CC: Maccabee Levine
  • No CC meeting today
• PC: Tod Olson
  • Continued discussion on supporting Roadmap, prioritization process, etc.
• RMS Group:
  • No meeting this week
• Security Team: 
  • No update
• Tri-council Application Formalization:  
  • No meeting last week, meet this week

• 21 Aug 2024 - Dedicated Discussion: Architectural decision making
• 26 Aug 2024 - Regular TC Meeting
• 28 Aug 2024 - Dedicated Discussion: Refine the OST process to ensure better coordination between SysOps and the TC
• 02 Sep 2024 - Regular TC Meeting

All

All

Need to log decisions for the following:  (see above)

• Discussions on the necessity of a Wednesday meeting to address the OST process and involvement of Sysops.

Check Recurring Calendar

• Discuss message in #tech-council from Julian Ladisch...
  • Spring Boot 3.4 and Spring Framework 6.2 for Ramsons
  • 3.3 ends before Ramsons support period ends, using 3.4 would prevent this. Right now there is a milestone version, RC by bugfest and final in November. Would need to be communicated early to the development groups. But the final would be after code freeze, would have to use RC.
  • Would upgrade to milestone version, around  bugfest go to RC then after bugfest to release, so three times, teams might opt to not do all three
  • CSP might be easier to handle for teams than doing it during bugfest
  • What would happen in the CSP? 3.3 to 3.4. Could be higher risk to do a minor version upgrade that requires small changes
  • Going to GA on an RC of spring boot seems odd. but by the time we get to GA both versions unsupported
  • RC probably has the majority of changes that the spring boot GA would have. If we do non-RC and aCSP then all the spring boot changes go out in a CSP, which is a lot of new spring boot stuff to not be tested
  • Incrementing a point in a CSP seems like too much
  • When we deploy CSP to bugfest we do smoke test
  • Some modules on separate branch have upgraded as PoC
  • Might want to talk with RMS more about CSP approach
  • Frame options for RMS meeting on the 26th
• Work on Sunflower page on Monday the 26th

Ingolf Kuss

Jason Root

Craig McNally

Marc Johnson

Julian Ladisch

Hold until after Aug 2.

In the Sys Ops SIG meeting the topic of Reference Data Upgrades came up. The SIG thinks that the solution of this problem for mod-inventory-storage is not enough, but that this problem needs to be solved in a general way, for all modules.

There has been a long discussion 3-4 years ago about how FOLIO should handle reference data upon upgrades. See these links for background:

• Original problem statement
• Input from SysOps SIG
• Proposals considered by Tech Council working group
• Recommendation from Tech Council working group

Previous Notes:

Background and Problem Statement

• The issue at hand involves the handling of reference data during system upgrades. In previous upgrades, some institutions experienced data loss where customized reference data was overwritten by default settings during the upgrade process.
• This problem was particularly highlighted in recent upgrade cycles, prompting a need for a more robust solution to preserve institution-specific customizations.

Existing Solutions and Approaches

• Circulation Module Example:

  • The circulation module had addressed this issue by implementing a solution where reference data is only installed during the initial setup and skipped in subsequent upgrades unless new data is introduced in the upgrade. This approach prevents the overwriting of existing customized data.
  • The TC discussed whether this solution could be standardized and applied across other modules facing similar issues.

• Challenges with Current Approach:

  • While the circulation module's solution is effective for preserving existing data, it does not account for scenarios where the reference data schema changes in new versions (e.g., adding new fields or making structural changes). In such cases, simply skipping the installation might not be sufficient, and more complex handling might be required.

Discussion Points

• Standardization Across Modules:
  • The TC debated whether a similar approach should be mandated across all modules to ensure consistency and prevent data loss during upgrades. However, it was noted that this might require module-specific adjustments, depending on how each module manages its reference data.
• Need for a Broader Solution:
  • There was recognition that a broader, more flexible solution might be necessary to handle various scenarios, such as changes in reference data structures. This could involve more sophisticated checks during the upgrade process to determine whether and how data should be updated or preserved.

Potential Actions

• Subgroup Formation:
  • The idea of forming a new subgroup to focus on developing a comprehensive strategy for reference data handling during upgrades was floated. This subgroup could explore creating an RFC (Request for Comments) to propose a standardized approach across the project.
• Review of Previous Work:
  • It was suggested that before moving forward, the TC should review previous efforts and discussions on this topic, including past proposals and proof-of-concept work that may have stalled due to resource constraints. This review would help ensure that any new efforts build on previous work rather than starting from scratch.

Next Steps

• Further Discussion:
  • The TC agreed to revisit this discussion in the next meeting, with members encouraged to review past work and consider whether they are interested in participating in a potential subgroup. The goal would be to establish a clear path forward for managing reference data during upgrades across all modules.

Today:

• ...

Review decisions that are in progress.  Can any of them be accepted?  rejected?

Currently there is a PoC, developed by Maccabee Levine, of a utility to catalog Github PRs that have been labeled with the "breaking change" label. We would like to get developer feedback on the feasibility of this label being used more often, and the usefulness of this utility. 

Previous Notes:

• A workflow for these pages. When do they transition from one state to another. Do we even need statuses at all ?

Stripes architecture group has some questions about the Poppy release.

Zak: A handshake between developers, dev ops and the TC. Who makes that decision and how do we pass along that knowledge ? E.g. changes in Nodes and in the UI boxes. How to communicate this ? We have a large number of teams, all have to be aware of it.  TC should be alerted that changes are happening. We have a couple of dedicated channels for that. Most dev ops have subscribed to these channels. How can dev ops folk raise issues to the next level of community awareness ? There hasn't been a specific piece of TC to move that along.

Craig: There is a fourth group, "Capacity Planning" or "Release Planning". Slack is the de facto communication channel.  There are no objections to using Slack. An example is the Java 17 RFC. 

Craig: The TC gets it on the agenda and we will discuss it. The TC gets the final say.

Marc Johnson: We shouldn’t use the DevOps Channel. The dev ops folks have made it clear that it should only be used for support requests made to them.

Jakub: Our responsibility is to avoid piling up technical debt.

Marc: Some set of people have to actually make the call. Who lowers the chequered flag ?

Craig: It needs to ultimately come to the TC at least for awareness. There is a missing piece. Capacity Planning needs to provide input here. 

Marc: Stakeholders / Capacity Planning could make that decision. Who makes the decision ? Is it the government or is it some parts of the body ?

Marc: the developers community, the dev ops community and sys ops are involved. For example the Spring Framework discussion or the Java 17 discussion. But it was completely separate to the TC decision. It is a coordination and communication effort.

Marc: Maybe the TC needs to let go that they are the decision makers so that they be a moderating group.

Jakub: I agree with Marc. But we are not a system operating group. Dependency management should be in the responsibility of Release management. There are structures in the project for that.

Jason Root: I agree with Jakub and with Marc also. Policies should drive operational/release/support aspects of Folio.

Jason Root: If the idea of “support” is that frameworks are supported, then of course the project should meet that.

Marc Johnson
Some group needs to inform OleksAii when a relevant policy event occurs.
These documents effectively ARE the manifestation of the policy.

Craig: This is a topic for the next Monday session.

Craig to see if Oleksii Petrenko could join us to discuss the process for updating the officially supported technologies lists.

Possible topic/activity for a Wednesday session:

Discuss/brainstorm:

• Ideas for the type of developer-facing documentation we think would be most helpful for new developers
• How we might bring existing documentation up to date and ensure it's consistent 
• etc.